Burt Gummer is back in the desolate town of Perfection. He is having tax problems, so when he is contacted by the daughter of Val and Rhonda (Kevin Bacon and Finn Carter’s characters from the first film) because their remote Alaskan research base is under Graboid attack, he and his Son Travis run off.
It all has everyone perplexed, as there seems to be no explanation for the Graboids to be so far north. Gummer starts to piece it all together when they discover a nearby Area 51 style base. But the Graboids start gobbling people up and the two groups have to team up to try and survive.
I have noted in the past I found it kind of interesting how the films migrated across time to focus on survivalist Burt Gummer as the hero. The fifth film introduced his previously unknown son Travis and beefed up the graboids in size and appearance. They also became more agile.
Gross seems to enjoy the role, though it may simply be that at this point he has the core of the character down. Kennedy’s Travis can grate on the nerves a bit, but there are several like-able characters, making it easy to avoid just rooting for the graboids to eat everyone.
The move in the fifth film to make more use of digital graboids (though, there are still practical monsters for some scenes) is less jarring than it could be. For the most part, the digital monster look pretty decent.
As someone who enjoys the Tremors series, I found this to be a passable, even fun sequel.
Often, film makers like to look at the giant epic excitement of alien and monster invasions. It is the spectacle, and does not let up. But every now and then, you find writers and directors who are more interested in the stories you can tell in the aftermath. The deeply personal tales.
Spielberg’s Jaws begot Joe Dante’s Piranha which begot more man eating fish movies. One of the most fun of these films was the 1999 smart sharks thriller Deep Blue Sea. A fun film starring Thomas Jane, Samuel Jackson, Saffron Burrows and LL Cool J, Deep Blue Sea has become a bit of a cult classic. In spite of painfully dated (and weak) CGI sharks (though the mechanical sharks used in the film are quite impressive) the film still holds up as a solid b-movie thriller.
Back in 2006, Adam Green made a splash within the horror genre with a throwback to 80’s slasher films called Hatchet. The story of a group of folks on a Louisiana swamp tour who run afoul of the local legend Victor Crawley.
In a lot of ways, Cell is an update of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. King has replaced the mall full of zombies as the representation of mindless consumption with modern technology. Specifically Cell phones.
1. Logan
5. Get Out
8. Atomic Blonde
James Wan has seen himself become increasingly in demand. His regular collaborator is Leigh Whannell (who plays Specs in the series). Whannell is the writer behind Wan’s Saw and the previous two Insidious films. Adding the duty of first time director can be a risky proposition, though certainly not a new situation in horror franchises. Elise has proven a pretty popular character, and seeing as she met her demise in the first film, the creators kind of painted themselves in a corner.
In the first film, it was established that part of what made young Dalton such an easy target was that his father had a similar experience with the same spirit as a boy. Opening in the first film’s tragic aftermath, Insidious Chapter 2 jumps back to that story.
Director James Wan made his name in horror with Saw, which launched a thousand torture themed horror films, though often made by less skilled people. But in 2009, Wan found himself creating a more unique form of horror. He accomplished this be exploring an older school of fright, the supernatural thriller.
Trying to cope with the suicide of her mother, Clare and her father are just getting by. Clare has few friends and is bullied in school. Her father gives her an ornate box as a gift. It turns out to be a supernatural force that grants her the wishes of her heart.
Tripping Through Gateways 